Report: Facebook takes a back seat to Instagram as ad spend on the Facebook-owned app grows 177%

Advertisers are continuing to shift ad dollars from Facebook to Instagram — resulting in an astounding amount of growth for the Facebook-owned app compared to its parent company. Facebook ad spend (excluding Instagram revenue) grew 40 percent year over year in Q2 2018, while ad spend on Instagram jumped a whopping 177 percent during the same time period, according to Merkle’s recent digital marketing report analyzing year-over-year social ad and search trends across the agency’s client base in Q2.